F A. I. HILLERSON I. CITY OF OVRUCH
Ovruch is a cantonal capital of the government of Volhynia, with a population of about 10,000 people. More than two thirds of this population are Jews.
The Jewish population is mostly unpolitical; there were no notable revolutionaries among them. In the period of the imperial pogroms Ovruch did not suffer.
The first pogrom in Ovruch took place in December, 1917, under the first Rada. Polish land-owners sojourning in the city and canton, and likewise former tsarist officials, true to tsaristic principles, sowed seeds of division, and instilled hatred for the Jews, attributing to their machinations the increase in the prices of products
Under the influence of their agitations the i6sth Ukrainian regiment, quartered in Ovruch, upon its demobilization in December, 1917, began to wreck Jewish stores and destroy the wares. Peasants of the neighboring villages came with carts and carried away all that remained undestroyed. Then the local population did the same. Only the stores were destroyed. The homes of the Jews did not suffer.
This pogrom gave occasion for the Jewish ex-soldiers in Ovruch to form an organization for self-defense. This operated for a considerable time but finally broke up.
Attitude Towards the Jews Under the Hetman
Under the Hetman there were no pogroms at all. The power of the Hetman was in reality a restorational power; it was colored in tsarist colors, but, according to the circumstances of the moment, in a decidedly faint shade. Under the Hetman
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there was no pogrom-agitation, but there was no lack of anti- Semitic propaganda. Among other things, from Zhitomir there was received in Ovruch a secret order not to accept Jews in the state service, and gradually to discharge those previously taken in.
The power of the Hetman, being a continuation of the tsarist power, although in a weakened form, was extremely unpopular among the Ukrainian peasants. And when the Germans, owing to the circumstances of the time, began to abandon the country, uprisings flared up in many places.
Uprising of the Peasants and formation of the Republic of Ovruch
On November 30, 1918, the peasants of the Pokalev district [volost], canton of Ovruch, arose. They declared the power of the Hetman overthrown and formed the republic of Ovruch. The volunteer officers who had been guarding the German power in Ovruch, about one hundred in number, fled without making resistance.
The peasants introduced strict order in Ovruch. They immediately freed the political prisoners from prison, and named one of their number, the peasant Dmitriuk, city commissar; a Jew, Friedman, member of the Bund, was named his assistant.
Among other things the peasants proposed to the Jewish community that they organize from their own midst a military detachment of one hundred and fifty men. But the Jews, having considered this proposal and recognized that the peasant government which had been formed had not sufficient guarantees of durability, wisely declined to form such a detachment.
At this time the power of the Hetman in Ukraine definitely fell; the Directory of Petlura came into power.
Bolshevism Among the Pokalev Peasants
Under the influence of the White Russian bolsheviks, who on the side of Kalinkovichi are the nearest neighbors of the Pokalev peasants, tendencies to bolshevism began to develop in violent measure among the latter, and bolshevist demands were heard ever more loudly. There was formed a majority of bolsheviks, and a minority which was ready to join the Ukrainian national movement.
Dmitriuk and Friedman, who stood at the head of the Ovruch republic, came out against the bolshevist tendencies of the
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Pokalevites. Dmitriuk was killed and Friedman saved himself by flight.
A certain Meschanchuk, as I believe an anti-Semite and blackhundred man, had already been named by the Pokalevites as commandant of the city of Ovruch. He secretly entered into agreement with the Petlura government in Korosten, informed it of the bolshevist tendencies in Ovruch and invited thither the socalled "Clan of Death."
"The Clan of Death" (Kuren Smerti)
The Clan of Death arrived in the city by night, surrounded the Pokalevites and disarmed them. Then the Cossacks of this Clan began to go around to the homes of the Jews, to remove the weapons. They found no weapons, but did find money and valuable property in many houses. All this they took. Thus began the plundering in Ovruch.